


liadon

by dandelionscreaming



Series: ardent brinstaras [1]
Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game), Original Work
Genre: Cultural Traditions, Friendship Bracelets, Gen, Nonbinary Character, The Immigrant Experience, Tieflings, asian coded character, eventual fantasy racism, feeling like a perpetual outsider in your own nation, good parenting, haha i dont know what im doing, implied sheep content, long northern winters, textile manufacturing but like in a cool way
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-22
Updated: 2021-01-29
Packaged: 2021-03-14 00:35:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28912458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dandelionscreaming/pseuds/dandelionscreaming
Summary: a story about my dnd character, told in vignettes. target audience of exactly six people, but if you like tieflings, self indulgence, tibetan valleys, magic universities, and extended explorations of what academic and racial trauma does to people, or like hearing people talk extensively abt their dnd charas, come vibe with me :)ardent grew up in the northern elven territory, in liadon, where the winters are long and the summer is gorgeous in a harsh, breathtaking way. ardent wasn't always ardent. there was something before. there always is.a preface to an adventure. the inhale before a breath of fire. the status quo that cannot last.
Series: ardent brinstaras [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2120490
Comments: 1
Kudos: 4





	1. ONE

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> where is liadon, anyway?

The territory held by the elven senate after the Great War is somewhat fragmented, into segments held by the houses of the Assembly. A quiet blend of the Assembly’s power, the delegation to each of the province holders, and the distance bridged by the bay gives each segment of the elven lands a distinct flavor. 

Most of the territories are contained in the densely-packed island at the heart of the elven territory, but when the tide of the war turned, the elven lands expanded out onto the mainland. Liadon and Zeya up north, where the mountains make the land impassable after a while. Mialee and Opal out west, by the halfling and human lands.

The mountains are cold, the winters are long and hard. Once, there were only dragonborn and giants this far up. Now, it’s home to the more tenacious members of any race, once elven settlements opened the door. Here more than most places, people can benefit from the harsh equality found on the frontier. Everyone’s equal once the snows come in. Your pedigree, your education, your money— none of it will save you if you’re caught too far north too late in the season. By late fall, it would be easy to assume nothing grows here: the ground barren and icy. Digging would be a fool’s errand even by early fall. Life in the north is a bet against time.

But the secret of the north is that the summers are like nothing else.

When the snow starts to melt and the sun cuts bright and stark through the branches, there’s a kind of harsh beauty to it. It’s the light at the end of the tunnel, it’s knowing you made it through again.

When the grasses come back up, the valleys  _ bloom _ with color: the icy ocean inlets turn a brilliant blue, the ground a vibrant green with pinks and purples dotting the vegetation. When the sun sets at the right time of year, ribbons of light trace the heavens. The people of Liadon, maybe more than most, know that there’s magic in the places they walk.

So they hang colorful flags and light lanterns and plant flax and hemp while they can (cotton comes in by wagon, it’s too cold up north). Liadon makes its gold on furs and bone, but the people make their silver off of linen and muslin, off of shipping cotton back south woven deftly and embroidered with as much skill as you’ll find this side of the ocean. Long winters out of the icy winds outside mean you learn to be good with your hands: scrimshaw, sewing, weaving. You smoke and salt and jar things and gather wood while you still can, or your neighbors dig your cold body out of your home when the ice thaws.

The people of Liadon are tough, by necessity, but there’s a warmth to them. There’s a light. When the sun stops coming up in the dead of winter, you light tallow and sing songs to keep the spark alive. And then when the spring comes, you take your labors of love to market.


	2. TWO

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> midwinter. a fire.

In Assurance’s daughter’s humble opinion (and as a matter of simple fact), once midwinter passes, there’s nowhere to go but up.

The midwinter traditions always help, too! There’s the candle at the window, the evergreen branch over the doorway, the preserves always saved through the whole winter. There’s the moment at midnight every year where A. D. (“Assurance’s daughter” is a mouthful even when you shorten it to “Assura”) sees her mother go out, carefully open the door (with a grate to keep the snow out) to sing out the retreating darkness with the neighbors they haven’t seen for a while. Of course, the sun won’t come for a few days yet, but midwinter is concrete. It’s all sunnier from here.

AD (say it like you're spelling it!) isn’t old enough to pick her name yet, but she thinks she wants something short. Something snappy. Something that doesn’t need to be shortened. But she likes AD too, so she wants to keep those letters. Narrows it down by a lot.

Midwinter was two nights ago. AD heard the music ring out into the black from their little town. She even thinks she heard it all the way from Liadon! They get less snow there, so it must be easier. And they’re closer together, so maybe they even get to see each other!

Assura’s voice is rough, but serviceable. AD can’t knock it when she sings her to sleep. To her, it’ll always be perfect.

It’s still too dark to put the bright string of flags out, to put out the lanterns and go to the festival in town that properly rings in the thaw, but midwinter means Liadon is closer to the sun than not, and so is AD.

So midwinter is two days behind, and AD, Assura, and AD's dad are around the fire like they usually are around this time. Time gets strange when its dark, and AD and Assura tend to have trouble waking up when it's this cold, tend to sit closer to the fire than AD's dad does, too. Assura says its because they're tieflings, but AD isn't sure what that means quite yet. She'll figure it out, though, she always does.

AD is excited, today, for no real reason. Assura is still working on the big tapestry, hands moving deftly across the warp, holding the shuttle. It looks like it's close to done, so AD ambles over to her mother's feet to peek. Assura lifts her up and puts her on her shoulders. AD puts her little hands around Assura's horns, to make sure she doesn't fall off. AD's dad giggles, but when AD looks around she can't see why. Probably not important, then.

Assura keeps working, now moving her head less. AD leans over, and the tapestry's image is clear.

It's an image of a red woman, tail winding around her, horns long and curving back. She's standing chest to chest and looking up at a tall man, thick blonde beard braided delicately in the weave. Behind the woman is a bunch of yellow grass, and behind the man is the skyline of Liadon proper: the city the province is named for.

AD purses her lips. She's been trying to guess the image all winter, and she thinks she's on the edge of a breakthrough andWAIT A SECOND— 

"It's mom and dad!"

Assura glances up. No pupils, but years of close contact mean AD can tell where's shes looking by her eyebrows, the tilt of her head. "That's it! Good job,  _ firefly _ !"

This last word she hisses and snarls.

"What was that last word? Honey, you know I don't speak Infernal." Dad looks up from a thick book, grinning warmly.

Assura and AD smile conspiratorially at each other, but Assura takes mercy. "It means 'firefly,' Axel." Assura lifts AD of her shoulders to gently knock their horns together. "Firefly.  _ My little lightning bug. _ "

Axel can't parse that last part, either, but somehow he doesn't seem to mind. AD giggles.

It's pitch black outside and will be for some time yet, but for now, beneath these rafters, it feel bright.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i have a whole plan for this should be around 5-7 chaps in the end


	3. THREE

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> market day. everything goes great.
> 
> content warnings in end note. chapter spoilers, but stay safe.

Liadon is well into spring.

The snows have mostly melted away, the lakes have cracked open and risen, the rivers and streams that trail from the forbidding mountains down to the sea are surging. The most daring farmers have started trying to crack the permafrost. The soil never gets deep enough to shelter the towering oaks that call other parts of the continent their home, but it’s deep enough for grasses, for flax and hemp. For parsnips (sweeter in the winter), some potatoes and carrots, the occasional cabbage. The berries are smaller, here, but they’re sweeter here than on most of the mainland. Fields of wheat and flocks of sheep keep Liadon running through the long winters.

Assura and AD are going to the city proper. It’s not AD’s first time, but it can’t be past her third. The wagon is full of wool that’s been carded, combed, and spun by practiced hands into yarn and the occasional bolt of fabric. Assura spent a while speaking with the weather-worn man in charge of the next house over, so this year they’re selling the products of both houses. There’s twice as much yarm as usual, way more fabric, and four rugs. They’re splitting the money, but AD thinks she remembers the other house handing them some crates of strawberries and flour when it was late fall and Axel and Assura had done the math wrong for the winter. Really, it all evens out.

Assura’s singing, something rhythmic while she drives the horses. AD is trying not to make a big deal of the silhouette of Liadon coming up in the distance, but the lashing of her tail against the sturdy planks of the wagon is kind of giving her away.

They pull up to the gate and it’s already open. They always seem to let Assura in on sight (when AD goes with Axel, it takes longer, but AD hasn’t figured it out yet). The packed-dirt paths that trace through Liadon are here framed by picturesque buildings bordered in darker wood. The bold lines traced across the faces of the houses and the little painted signs on the shops always make AD feel something that can’t be put into words. Home will always be the little cabin a few hours outside the city with her parents, but this is  _ something _ too.

Assura stops the wagon in the open-air market and AD helps her get all the wool into an empty stall. The bolts are neatly folded and stacked, the yarn into baskets by color (gentle dyes from the same berries that go into jars and cellars), the rugs in pride of place. Assura leaves with the wagon to go put it somewhere else, to put the horses in a stable somewhere. Assura leaves AD to watch the stall, which is an important job! The prices are written down on a slip of paper AD has in her pocket, and she hopes she gets a chance to actually sell someone something.

Assura’s gone for a while, not that AD has a great sense of time. She hums to herself, the same song Assura got stuck in her head.  _ I was born one morning when the sun didn’t shine . . .  _

She’s still lost in thought, her tail swinging to the rhythm, when some kids who are taller than her come to the stall. One of them’s got a hat, one of them has a jacket that looks really nice, and the one in the middle looks really strong. She perks up and tries to keep her tail still. “Hail and well met! Yarn is ten coppers, fabric is by the yard and it’s-”

“We don’t take wool from  _ demons _ .” One of them spits. All three of them look cleaned up: they’ve got buttons on those clothes, gold threaded embroidery on the borders, there’s not a smudge of dirt on them. AD knows they’re from the city the way she knows that wolves will maul you if you’re not careful.

“W-what? I’m not a-” AD is mainly just confused. Something feels really off. She looks for Assura hoping she’s around the corner-

“Yeah you are!” The one in the hat pipes up. “You’ve got the horns and you’re purple and everything! And you talk weird.”

“No I don’t! This is how my mom talks!” AD is suddenly acutely aware of her choppy syllables, the lilt of her and her mother’s speech. These childrens hit their Rs straight: Assura always kind of spun them around in her mouth.

“Yeah, because your mom’s a demon too! I know because my dad told me so.” The one in the middle puffs his chest up. “And demons are bad! You’re a  _ demon _ girl.”

That feels really, really wrong. “Demon” has the itch of a word AD doesn’t know, but “girl” just feels weird for no reason. Like it’s a bad thing. AD looks around the market, but none of the sellers seem to care. None of them are even watching, and the middle one is getting kind of loud.

“You don’t belong in Liadon. That’s what my mom always says. And you should go back to the Hells, where you came from!”

That’s another word she doesn’t know. “The  _ what _ ? What’s that? I’ve never heard of it.”

The one in the hat pipes up again. “It’s a bad bad place where things like  _ you _ come from, and you belong there with the rest of your kind, so you shouldn’t be here in Liadon because we live here, and we belong here! Because we were  _ born _ here.” He seems really satisfied with that, but AD isn’t any less confused.

“But I was born here too! I live outside Liadon with my mom and my dad!”

“You’re a liar!”

“I’m not!”

“Demons always lie!”

“I’m not a demon! I don’t even know what that is!”

The one in the middle goes very, very still. When he speaks, his voice comes out with an edge. It’s like when Assura’s mad at AD, but worse somehow. “Yeah you are. And we’re gonna make sure you know why demons don’t belong in Liadon. Grab her.”

AD doesn’t even have time to process why that last part turns her stomach, why the thought of these people she doesn’t know _ seeing _ her bothers her so much, when the one in the coat gets behind her, lifts her up from the stool she was on, and holds her by the shoulders. AD kicks kind of instinctively, tail lashing, but she doesn’t touch the ground. Her stomach feels cold— it’s like she’s sinking into a frozen lake.

The one in the middle grabs one of her horns and she can’t really move anymore. He winds up, his fist resting by his shoulder.

The one in the hat spits on the ground. His voice is filled with something AD can’t name. “ _ Demon girl. _ ”

The middle kid punches AD right in the stomach.

It  _ hurts _ .

Everything goes white for a second.

* * *

Assura comes back around the corner and finds AD on the ground, clutching her stomach with her eyes closed, an older boy near her on the ground. There are two other older kids next to her, but they seem really skittish. They’re yelling at the third boy to  _ get up, come on, we’re gonna get caught _ . They think that  _ this wasn’t supposed to happen _ , and Assura sees one of them aim a kick at— 

At AD.

In the ensuing sprint, Assura sees that the boy on the ground has char marks on his face, that his clothes are burned. The skin on his right hand looks raw, and in bad shape. When the boys see her, they freeze in place. The one who was trying to kick AD freezes with his foot in the air. In another situation, it would be funny.

“Good afternoon, boys. Can you tell me what your names are?”

“Ah, miss, we were just—”

“That’s not what I asked.”

* * *

They couldn’t sell anything that day. Assura was too busy, and AD kind of collapsed. When they headed home Assura put AD to bed and told Axel everything.

“Oh,  _ gods. _ ”

“Right there in the market square. She had to Rebuke them, and you try telling humans that tieflings only use hellfire in self defense. I handled everything of course, but . . .”

Axel sighs deeply. They’re both exhausted. “I hoped we would have more time.”

“I was being too optimistic. My hopes were unrealistic. I shouldn’t have sheltered her like that. Maybe—” Assura chokes.

“Don’t blame yourself, honey. Those kids were awful, it wasn’t your fault.”

“ _ No _ . It’s not even the kids. It’s the parents, it’s the church, its the guard that lets it keep happening.” Assura sobs again, the tears making her accent unintelligible, but Axel knows she’s not done, putting a hand on her back to steady her. “People like us don’t get to rely on the kindness of strangers. We’re always on the defense. I should have protected her. I should have told her everything. Maybe then we both would have been more careful. I never should have left her alone in the city. People feel too free to do their—” Assura snarls, cursing in Infernal. “In a big city, nobody’s watching.”

Axel nods. Assura lets out a breath, the breath of someone carrying a heavy burden. “It’s better than the alternative, but it wasn’t supposed to be like this. She’s still just a kid. She should have been safe, and happy.”

“We can’t go back and do it better. What do we do now?”

Axel and Assura smile at one another. It’s a reassurance more than an expression of anything. Whatever happens next, it’ll be all three of them.

* * *

When AD wakes up, Axel’s making something in the kitchen, and Assura’s waiting by the fire with a heavy book. AD leaps into Assura’s arms, red eyes brimming with tears. and once the crying and tearful explanations are done, AD wipes her eyes and sniffs.

“And something really weird happened!”

“Yeah? Do you want to talk about it?”

“They called me a demon, and I didn’t really get it—”

“That’s okay, we can talk about it later.” Assura smiles sadly.

“But they called me a girl, and that felt bad too, but I don’t know why, because that one’s true!”

Assura just looks at AD for a second.

AD looks back.

Axel calls out from the kitchen. “Hey, firefly. Do you want to try something?”

AD nods hesitantly.

“Okay, I’m going to pretend I’m talking to somebody else. Hi, stranger, this is my daughter, AD.”

AD’s face scrunches up.

“Did that not feel right?”

AD brightens up in realization. “No, it doesn’t! ‘Daughter’ doesn’t feel right!” The gears turn in AD’s head, the experiment makes sense.

“That’s alright, now we know something. Okay. Let’s try something else. Hi stranger, this is my amazing son, AD.”

AD frowns.

“Not right either? Huh.” Axel pauses for a second.

Assura pipes up. “Hail and well met, stranger. This is my incredible kid, AD. They’re the light of my life.” Her accent twists the consonants in a melody that’s music to AD’s ears.

AD grins. So does Axel.

“Alright, that’s the one, then. You know, you’re getting kind of big now. Do you want to pick a name?”

AD’s eyes go wide and starry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> content warning: fantasy racism, dehumanization, physical assault, hate crime, brief/not detailed description of burn injuries, gender dysphoria.
> 
> note: ardent and assurance are asian coded. author is asian and nonbinary.


	4. FOUR

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a summer afternoon. a conversation.

Ardent Brinstaras is young— too young, when their mother, Assura, explains to them the way of the world. 

She explains that Ardent’s nature will make enemies of strangers for as long as they’re alive, and that tieflings have a natural self defense. She explains that Ardent’s nature puts ceilings and iron gates on the world for them. That some things wil be harder, and that some things will just never be possible. Assura takes a worn map of the continent and some red ink, but over the years all those red circles look like less of a warning and more of a challenge. More and more visits to the city over years gives Ardent a spine. Makes them angry and spiteful, but they get good at hiding it, and talking their way out of things. It all becomes survival, and Ardent hates every moment of it, but it keeps them alive and they’re  _ very  _ good at it.

It’s near the peak of summer, and Ardent and Assura are making bracelets out in the square out of richly dyed yarn. They still make things, they still sit together by the fireplace, but nothing feels as carefree as it did when Ardent was a child. Sometimes Ardent wonders if it was ever really that simple.

Assura speaks, weaving easily while Ardent struggles with the braiding. “When you’re a tiefling, you screen your friends carefully and hold on to them while you can. You can’t afford to slip up trusting the wrong people. But people are easy sometimes, and giving them something or doing something for them will butter them up. Collect debts and favors in the absence of trust.”

“That’s really bleak.”

“Bleak world when you look like a monster.” Assura’s accent has softened over time, but not as much as Ardent’s. Their Infernal is as easy as ever, though.

Ardent snorts, eyes still on the tangle of yarn in their hands.

“I’m serious,  _ firefly _ .” Assura lapses into Infernal. “ _ It’s not easy. Liadon is friendlier than most because everybody’s buried in snow half the year. _ ”

“ _ Yeah, if you’re cold, you’re too tired to commit hate crimes. _ ” Ardent’s in a rare gallows-humor mood.

Assura laughs out loud. “ _ Makes you humble! When you nearly die in the snow and your demon neighbor makes it through to help you out, it’s hard to deny that that’s a person and you’re equal. People get a superiority complex when they don’t have to be strong to survive. Makes them bad company. _ ”

Ardent snorts again, but they note it in their mind. Assura can be kind of cold, kind of pragmatic, but it’s from a life of survival. Assura made it, so Ardent tends to at least listen to the advice. The snark is for appearances. Everything becomes survival, after a point.

Ardent goes back to Common. “Can you help me with this?” They hold up a tangle of cords. There’s three yellow threads, a red one, and a leather cord, but it’s just all kind of become a mess. Assura deftly untangles it and does a few rounds of the repeated braiding pattern.

“You go three over five over two, then two becomes the new three.”

The words make no sense on their own, but Ardent nods as the strands come together. “So then you go one over three over two?”

“Exactly.”

They sit in silence for a while. The sun is bright, the snow long gone. Past the houses Ardent can see flowers blooming in the valley. This is home. But Ardent already knows they have to go away to find what they’re looking for.

Ardent needs to cross a red circle off of their bucket list.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> might be a while before the next chap but i know what its gonna be :)


	5. FIVE

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the tail end of midsummer festival. a tipping point. a resolution is made.

Ardent’s last midsummer in Liadon goes exactly how they thought it would.

It’s a day of dandelion wine. It’s waking up at sunrise and ambling home late into the night. It’s wildflowers twisted into Ardent’s hair and sweet preserves on their tongue. The  _ scale _ of the revel in the city is always incredible, always a hell of a time. Ardent’s here alone this time. They’re here a lot nowadays, actually.

Liadon proper is. Strange. For Ardent. It carries the weight of that one awful market day almost ten years ago, but it’s also good food, embroidery thread, new books, and harassing the incoming ships every time they’re there for new books. Lately, all Ardent has been doing is studying Elven history and basic magical theory, but breaks are important.

There’s a careless joy in the way midsummer goes, every single year. Even long past the death of Ardent’s childhood, they find themselves laughing for no reason at midsummer, looking up at the strings of lanterns that stretch between the shops framing the town square. There’s something innocent about it. Unburdened.

That’s what Ardent’s after. That feeling of limitlessness. Since that market day that almost never leaves their mind, Ardent has been cripplingly aware of the limits on where they can go and what they can do and who they can talk to and  _ who they can be _ — 

Ardent’s fucking tired of it.

They’ve been out since sunrise, and the place is starting to mellow out. It’s still bright, loud, and stretching several blocks, but the sun is setting. Ardent’s got a little wooden cup of something that’s really sweet, and they’re leaning against a beam under a porch awning. In the almost-manic joy of the early afternoon, there was dancing and gifts and laughter. There was a celebration, something electric in the air that caught everyone up in it. But every year, Ardent gets better and better at catching this  _ cutoff. _

There’s this nigh-imperceptible moment after the peak of the party where everyone decides the novelty of talking to a tiefling has lost its shine. There’s this  _ moment _ where everyone clusters together with their closest friends and giggles about how they danced next to the  _ demon  _ earlier today and Ardent knows it’s not violent, angry, like those boys were at market day. Ardent barely ever actually hear it. They  _ know _ they’re gonna be safe this time. But somehow, it feels the same. It feels cold.

The limitlessness of midsummer never lasts. The party is nice and all, but this moment never hurts any less. Ardent can’t handle a lifetime of this. Assurance and Axel have one another, and Axel especially has never been one for drinking with strangers late into the night. Ardent doesn’t have anyone. 

Still lost in thought, they push off of the porch and go to take the steady mare that brought them here back from the stable keeper. Soon, they’re on the road home, away from the distant shouting and fading music of the revel.

They grew up with the neighbor kids, of course. Ran around and harassed the sheep right next to all the other kids. But the six months of distance that come with the snows every year makes the idea of being friends with the devil sour on any good upstanding Liadon-born kid. After over a decade, Ardent can catch the judgement in the long silences, the things everyone in this town thinks they know about Ardent. Not that they would ever say anything of course. 

_ This is a perfectly fine town, _ Ardent thinks bitterly as they ride into the quiet square of their hometown.

Assura doesn’t talk to the neighbors nearly enough to be bothered by it. But Ardent is fourteen, then fifteen, then— and suddenly one day they wake up and realize nobody in the  _ gods-damned _ world is close to them that isn’t an immediate relative. Nobody trusts Ardent, so Ardent doesn’t trust anybody.

Ardent puts the horse in the stable, then walks the rest of the way and opens the worn wooden door to the Brinstaras home, letting out a sigh.

“I want to go to Amastacias University."

* * *

Amastacias is on the Elven mainland, which is a generous term for the island that hosts the best and brightest and wealthiest of the Elven population. It’s one of the more influential provinces, and it’s largely known for its university, renowned across the continent.

It started as a wizard school, and it’s still considered the best by the continent’s most erudite (those people are, of course, all Amastacias-educated). It happens to have one of the largest widely-known collections of magical texts in the known world. It also happens to be run by just one incredibly long-running family of elves: the Sylithars. It  _ also _ happens to be pretty hard to get in, especially as someone who might not be an elf, might be a member of one of the continent’s most-hated races (not to mention how  _ so many tieflings become warlocks,  _ did you know that—)

It’s a long shot.

But Ardent has known this is the endgame since they  _ heard _ about Amastacias. This is the route. This is the path to becoming more. Assura always taught Ardent to rise above circumstance, to endure and pull through. Ardent thinks it’s about time to do more than just go through things. Magic is going to be the answer. It has to be.

* * *

Assurance and Axel are sitting by the fireplace. They look at one another, briefly. Axel looks up at Ardent, smiling.

“We’ll get you on a ship by the end of next month.”

Assura interjects. “And just so you know, you’ll always be welcome here,  _ firefly. We want you to be safe. _ ” The sound of spoken Infernal always makes Ardent feel at home.

Tears well up in Ardent’s eyes, and something icy pierces their stomach.

“I know I will. I love you.  _ I love you. _ ”

The hug that Axel and Assura deliver nearly crushes Ardent’s lungs. In the best possible way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> next chapter will be the end of liadon! gonna keep going w this series tho ;)


End file.
